A woman trying to feed the kids in her neighborhood during the summer may be fined for her good deed. Angela Prattis of Chester Township, outside Philadelphia, has spent the past few months handing out free lunches to the children in her community while they're home from school for the summer break. The food, supplied by the archdiocese of Philadelphia, helps low-income residents of the township, which has a per capita income of $19,000 a year.

The city council was alerted to Prattis's free lunches and ruled that if she continues to give away food next summer, she will need a variance or be fined $600 a day. The council says she needs a variance because she's giving away meals in a residential area, which is a zoning violation. However, if Prattis gets a variance to distribute the food, the administrative fees would cost up to $1,000. The Chester Township City Council has agreed to allow Prattis to continue distributing food for the duration of the summer, but next summer is a whole new battle. Currently, Prattis files paperwork weekly and is visited by a state worker biweekly to ensure she is doing what she says she's doing.

Prattis, who does not make any money on the meal distribution, says she wanted to help make sure the neighborhood kids received at least one healthy meal a day during the summer. "You have houses here. The roofs are falling in, and they could be focused on a lot more serious issues than me feeding children," Prattis said of the city council's ruling.

People on the social news site Reddit are outraged by the ruling. One person said, "A woman is penalized for doing what the government, theoretically, should be doing but aren't." Another person wrote, "No good deed goes unpunished." Prattis told local news crews that she will continue doing her part to help in her community.

Click to expand...

I can't watch the video, it could be only restricted to American users.

So its now illegal to give food away to people but what about the US Government it hands out free food all the time to other countries. Can the States fine the US Government $800 Million Dollars for violating the Don't Feed other Countries Act.

Geez I guess people can't be nice or do anything without wanting something in return these days. All
selfless persons be forwarned you will be penalized and incarcerated for your generacity.

what you've got to understand is this is an everyday woman, not a professional, giving out potentially unclean or dangerous food to children, possibly without consent. there's legal issues involved if a kid gets sick or hurt. it's like why you have to check for razorblades in your halloween candy.

what you've got to understand is this is an everyday woman, not a professional, giving out potentially unclean or dangerous food to children, possibly without consent. there's legal issues involved if a kid gets sick or hurt. it's like why you have to check for razorblades in your halloween candy.

what you've got to understand is this is an everyday woman, not a professional, giving out potentially unclean or dangerous food to children, possibly without consent. there's legal issues involved if a kid gets sick or hurt. it's like why you have to check for razorblades in your halloween candy.

Click to expand...

other than this, i don't see a problem with what she's doing. the US government is more worried about the wallets of Americans than their well-being. seriously, wtf?

Sadly these days if you provide food or goods to a large number of people then you must be accredited and monitored.

The same reason why nobody can simply decide to become a babysitter to 50 kids during the holidays to make some money, health and safety issues.

Sign of the times. What this woman really should do is whatever this varience thing is, and get her overheads paid for by the government. Seriously, she should tell the press that is exactly what she is doing and do it, nobody in their right mind would ever deny her the funds to continue doing whats she's doing.

Teh Govmint: "Hey - that woman's giving stuff away for free! We should find a way to charge her a hefty fee for doing that!"

Okay, if she really did end up having to find cash to pay these fees then it would be better served giving that cash, or some kind of food voucher, to the needy people to buy food with. If there really has to be money involved then put it into the hands of those that really need it rather than into the g-string of a hooker hired by someone working at the government offices.

While I understand the need for some kind of health and safety control measures for this, all they're really going to do is price this nice woman into not being able to help anymore and the only ones that lose out are, as usual, the ones that needed it most.

If the problem is just that she's giving away the meals in a residential area then just drive everyone out into the desert and give them the food there instead.

If she really wants to continue without paying the variance fee, she should just invite the children in and give them lunch. Then she's just feeding guests in her home. Problem solved. I work in city government. There's always ways around bullshit ordinances.

If she really wants to continue without paying the variance fee, she should just invite the children in and give them lunch. Then she's just feeding guests in her home. Problem solved. I work in city government. There's always ways around bullshit ordinances.

What's wrong with it? I give out free candy to children in my neighborhood all the time.

Click to expand...

...in a van down by the RIVER!!!

Anyways, as for the topic at-hand...I can understand where they're coming from on this, from a legal standpoint anyways, but...COME ON...really? As RKillian said, it was probably a food-related business that started this whole thing after taking this personally as "stolen" profits...